


Making Christmas Memories

by aviciousunicycle



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Tree, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute, F/M, Fluff, James is too pure, One Shot, RocketShipping - Freeform, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 03:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13138353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aviciousunicycle/pseuds/aviciousunicycle
Summary: Jessie, James, and Meowth find themselves taking shelter in a cabin on Christmas Eve. When James reminisces on beautiful Christmases in his past, he learns that his two companions do not have fond memories of their own. Using his meager funds and what he can find in a small neighboring town, James sets out to make sure that Jessie and Meowth can have at least one happy Christmas memory.Perhaps he even gains a new one himself along the way.





	Making Christmas Memories

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a Rocketshipping fic before, but it was my first ever ship. For some reason, I've gotten back into it recently, so I decided to have a go at writing it.   
> I'm working on a multichap fic, but since I have such a poor completion record for those, I intend to complete the fic before I begin posting it. So, if you like this, look for more from me in the future. No promises, but...we'll see.  
> Anyway, I hope y'all like this. Happy holidays, everyone.

In a ramshackle cabin on the outskirts of a small town Team Rocket had sought refuge from the winter’s chill. Meowth was all but inside the fireplace trying to find a way to light a fire to provide a bit of heat to the three thieves and their Pokémon. Jessie, meanwhile, studied a calendar tacked to the wall, crossing off days as she tried to remember what day of the week it was. James looked at the document over her shoulder and let out a rather unmanly whoop, “Oh! It’s Christmas Eve!”   
His partner shrugged, “So what?”   
“Oh, I used to love Christmas when I was a boy!” James began, “Every year my parents and I would go up to a lovely ski lodge in the mountains. Father and I would hike into the forest and choose the most perfect fir tree for the servants to chop down and bring into the parlor. In the evening, Mother and I would cover the tree with beautiful ornaments decorated with gold and silver and jewels and--” James stopped abruptly when he realized that his two companions had stopped what they were doing to look at him with bitter expressions on their faces. “What’s the matter?” he asked, “You don’t like Christmas?”   
Jessie huffed, “Christmas was certainly different if you weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”   
Meowth nodded in agreement, “It’s a cold time a’ year to be out on da streets.”   
“Oh,” James sighed, faltering as he remembered that Jessie’s and Meowth’s pasts were quite different from his own.   
A moment passed in silence as Meowth returned to working on the fireplace and James stared at his feet, feeling rather insensitive at the moment.   
Finally, Jessie spoke, “Even the good Christmases I had were so few and far between...As far as I’m concerned, it’s just another day that we can spend finding valuable Pokémon for the boss.”   
James grimaced as he walked to the fireplace to help their feline companion. ‘I wish there was some way that I could make this Christmas special for Jessie,’ he thought as he worked, ‘Meowth, too. They both deserve to have at least one happy memory of the holiday.’

Eventually the fire was not only lit, but roaring. Meowth roasted the contents of a package of cheap sausages over the flames.    
Not long after finishing their dinner, Meowth and Jessie climbed beneath a pile of lumpy comforters and fell into a deep sleep.    
James, however, couldn’t sleep yet. He sat awake in front of the fire, studying a map of the surrounding area and the neighboring town. He counted the money he had put aside for himself, there wasn’t much of it, but it was his and his alone.   
He sat back on his hands and sighed, before turning his head to look at his friends. Meowth was buried so deep in the blankets that only the black tips of his ears were visible. Jessie, however, was sound asleep and turned toward James. He studied her face for a moment, noting how soft and beautiful it looked when she was relaxed. A jolt ran through his body and his hair stood on end-- had he just thought that Jessie was beautiful?!    
He shook his head as if attempting to jar the offending thought from his brain. She  _ was  _ beautiful, but he-- he couldn’t think like that.   
They were Team Rocket-- thieves, bad to the core, troublemakers, and hooligans. He couldn’t go soft now-- er...soft _ er _ .   
Not to mention the fact that he was about to have to climb under the same blankets as his partner and the last thing he needed was to say something embarrassing in his sleep when she was close enough to hear it.  
He checked his maps again, placed his money in his wallet, set an alarm for long before Jessie and Meowth planned on waking, then climbed beneath the comforters and drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, James’s silent alarm roused him from a very comfortable slumber. During the night, the three Rockets had sought the comfort of one another’s body heat and had drifted toward the center of the futon. The first sensation he was aware of as he began to wake was the warm weight of Meowth atop him, curled into a ball and dozing happily beneath the heavy blankets.   
It was the second thing James noticed that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He and Jessie had each migrated to the center of the pile during the night, leaving the two of them rather close together. Her hand grasped the loose material of his black undershirt, her chest was pressed lightly against his own, while their legs tangled as her frigid toes yearned for his body heat. However, it was her face, nestled against his neck, that startled James the most. He could feel each deep, relaxed breath warm against his skin, sending shivers up and down his spine.   
How was he supposed to get out of bed now?    
If he woke Jessie, he was sure that the consequences would be dire. Not only would she be enraged that she had been woken from her beauty sleep, she would almost certainly not be pleased to find the two of them in this position.    
Not to mention that James didn’t even know if he wanted to move. This felt incredibly comfortable and he valued any chance he had to be close to Jessie, something he had never even admitted to himself before now.  
But he was a man on a mission, if he didn’t get out of the cabin now, he might not get the chance.    
Slowly and carefully, he began to extract himself from the warm and comfortable pile of blankets and his oh-too-alluring bedmate.    
As he removed Jessie’s hand from his chest, her eyes fluttered slightly and he froze, fearing that he had woken her. However, she just smiled and curled her hand beneath her chin as she continued her deep sleep.  
James breathed a sigh of relief as he gently placed Meowth atop his partner’s hip.  
He moved to his supplies and changed into his warmest and most inconspicuous clothing. Wrapping his scarf tightly around his neck, he opened the door and took a look back over his shoulder at the pile of blankets containing the sleeping form of his two closest friends.   
Smiling softly, James set out into the frigid morning wind.

Meowth rolling off of Jessie’s hip woke her up. She sat still for one groggy moment before noticing that she was the only human left under the comforters. “James?” she mumbled, reaching out to feel the slight indent in the futon next to her.    
Had he been that close to her? She certainly didn’t remember that happening.  
She sat up and reached across to shake the scratch cat Pokémon awake, “Meowth?”  
Meowth rolled over mumbling something about eating.   
Jessie frowned and thumped the feline on the back of the head, “Wake up, furball!”  
“Why would ya do sumt’in’ like that for?!” Meowth shouted, leaping to his feet and glaring at his human companion.  
“Oh calm your whiskers!” Jessie growled, “Do you know where James has gone?”  
Meowth looked around the cabin; there were only two rooms to the structure and the bathroom door was open. James was nowhere to be found.  
Jessie stood up, bringing one of the comforters with her, wrapping it tightly around her body. She walked to the window and wiped the fog from the pane. The branches on the trees were straining in the brisk winter wind and wet snowflakes were beginning to float through the air as well. Jessie frowned, ‘Where could James be?’

Meowth began working on starting a new fire to take the edge off of the chill in the cabin. When he looked up from the newly-created blaze, he found his friend still staring out the window.   
The scratch cat hopped up onto the windowsill and looked out at the gray and miserable scene.   
“I’m sure Jimmy’s fine,” Meowth said frowning.  
“Hm,” Jessie shrugged. She wasn’t so sure. James was great at finding his way around and she was certain that he wouldn’t get lost. However, her partner was not always the best at dealing with other people; it would have been all to easy for someone to convince James to follow them off to who knows where...or to beat him up and leave him for dead.  
She stepped away from the window and began digging through her belongings looking for warm clothes.  
“Where do ya think you’re goin’?” Meowth said, watching the woman tossing Team Rocket uniforms from a seemingly bottomless duffel bag.  
“To find James!” she said, finally pulling a sweater from the bag.  
“Ah!” Meowth shouted, “Dere’s no reason fer both of ya to get lost!”  
Jessie stopped, midway through pulling the sweater over her head, thinking about what the feline had said. ‘How dare he!’ she thought, ‘I will not get lost!’  
As she began pulling her hair into a messy bun to better fit a knit cap, a loud thump was heard from the door.   
“What was dat?!” Meowth shouted in surprise, hopping down from the window.  
Before Jessie had a chance to answer, the door creaked open and a mess of lavender hair beneath a blue knit cap poked through the gap.   
“James!”  
“Where da heck have ya been?! Jessie was worried sick!”  
Jessie growled at the cat, but didn’t have time to deny anything before her partner was calling for Meowth to help him with something outside.  
Meowth grumbled, but agreed, stepping outside before returning shortly carrying a cardboard box and wearing a broad smile, “Hey, Jimmy, I don’t know whatcha got in here, but it smells delicious!”  
Shortly after Meowth entered, the top of a scruffy looking pine tree poked through the doorway of the cabin.   
“What the--”   
“Why ya bringin’ a tree in here, Jimmy?”  
Finally, James and the pine tree were completely in the cabin and he was struggling to close the door behind him. He arranged some blocks so that the tree was standing on its own in a corner of the cabin near the fireplace.

“James, what are you doing?” Jessie asked, “And where have you been?”    
James merely smiled and motioned to the rather lopsided tree, “I got a Christmas tree for us!”   
“This twig?” Meowth asked, looking the tree over.     
James frowned, “Well, I’ve got some decorations for it, too.”  
“Where did you get decorations?” the scratch cat asked.    
The male Team Rocket member opened a bag containing what looked to be garbage.    
“I cut shapes from aluminum cans I found in the trash in town. I had to put tape around the edges so they wouldn’t be as sharp as a Scyther’s scythes, but they’re colorful and they’ll reflect the firelight!”  
Meowth watched as James pulled a round aluminum piece from the bag, admiring the sparkle of the flickering flames reflected by the silver metal.  
“Come on, now,” James said, smiling at his companions, “let’s decorate the tree.”  
James handed the ornament in his hand to Meowth who stood on his toes to place it in the branches of the tree.    
“I found the tree on the trail back,” James said, answering an unasked question, “It took a while to cut down with only my pocket knife, but I think it will be worth the wait once we get it all decorated.”  
He nestled a red oval ornament nearer the top of the tree.  
“Come on, Jess,” James said, smiling and holding out a blue ornament toward her.  
Jessie rolled her eyes, smiling at her partner and taking the aluminum piece from his hands.   
After a few minutes, the trio managed to have found places for all the ornaments, then James lifted Meowth up to place a large silver star on top of the tree.  
Setting the scratch cat back down on the floor, they stepped back and admired their handiwork. It really did look pretty with all of the metal reflecting the orange flickering firelight.   
“Oh!” James shouted, “I almost forgot!”  
He leapt up and ran to the table where Meowth had placed the cardboard box.

James began pulling plastic bags from a nearby convenience store out of the box.    
Meowth sniffed the air, walking toward James, leaping onto the table.  
He held up a deep foam bowl and smiled at Jessie, “I bought Christmas dinner!”  
“Ooh!” Jessie cooed, eyes sparkling, “What did you get?”  
James smiled a bit more nervously, “Well, I didn’t have a lot of money, so I just went to the convenience store. I got some oden and rice balls for me and you, plus still had enough money to get some salmon for Meowth!”  
Meowth was practically drooling, “Salmon?! Jimmy dis is the best Christmas present a cat could want!”  
James smiled and scratched the back of his head, “I mean, it isn’t that much…”  
Jessie opened the lid of the foam bowl and looked at the ten or so pieces of oden sitting in the warm broth. It was perfect for the weather, not to mention that she couldn’t remember the last time she had the dish. “It looks delicious!” she said, eyes seemingly as big as saucers.   
“Then what are we waiting for?” he asked, handing his partner a pair of chopsticks, “Let’s dig in!”

After Meowth finished off his salmon, James pulled another item from the box, a large purple yarn ball with a red bow. The scratch cat happily took the yarn ball to play with it beneath the Christmas tree. Soon, Meowth had exhausted himself and was curled into a ball beneath the branches.  
Jessie and James sat close to the fireplace, taking in the warmth and the orange glow. She shivered as a particularly strong gust of wind caused a cold draft to pass over the pair.    
James reached behind them and pulled one of the lumpy comforters over his partner’s shoulders.   
Once he was sure that the blanket was pulled around her, he pulled out another bag.  
“I got a gift for you, too, Jess,” James said, passing the gift to his friend.  
She extracted her hands from the blanket and began pulling items from the bag-- a tube of lipstick in her preferred shade, wonderfully scented moisturizing lotion, and a few other items of makeup.   
“I know you don’t get to buy them for yourself that much since we never seem to have any money,” James explained with a soft smile, “So I thought you might like getting some for Christmas.”  
She looked up at him, mirroring his smile, “You used your personal money to buy this for me?”  
He looked away, blushing, “It wasn’t that much, really.”  
Jessie was silent as she looked at the items in her lap, “I didn’t get you anything.”  
“That’s okay,” James said, “I just wanted to make this a special Christmas for you... and for Meowth, too.”  
For perhaps the first time in her life, Jessie was speechless.   
The silence made James nervous, so he continued talking, “You two said that you didn’t have many happy Christmas memories and I wanted to change that. Just knowing that you guys are happy is the only gift I nee--”  
James’s rambling was cut short by something he had never expected, Jessie’s lips against his own. They were somehow both soft and insistent, kissing him with intent but still meshing against his perfectly. His whole body froze as he thought, ‘Is this really happening?’  
When they separated, James stuttered, “J- Jessie?”   
She smiled and blushed slightly, voice betraying the nervousness she would never admit, “Well, you said you wanted this to be a special Christmas.”  
James didn’t know what to say, instead he just leaned in for another kiss.  
Not much later, the pair cuddled together beneath a pile of lumpy comforters before a dwindling fire.   
James looked under the tree at the snoozing Pokémon, then at the woman sleeping peacefully in his arms.   
Smiling as he too fell asleep, he knew that he would sleep well tonight safe in the knowledge that his friends finally had some good Christmas memories.


End file.
